Guyana's Kaieteur Falls a secret ... for now
© 2000 Reuters Limited
September 5, 2000
Story by Robert Elliott
KAIETEUR FALLS, Guyana - Pvt. Robert Howat of the Scottish Black Watch took the most dangerous dip on record when he swam across the top of Guyana's Kaieteur Falls in 1955, drawn by both the challenge and the flower blossoms on the far bank.
Howat was on the final leg of his risky round trip and "hungry for dinner" when he got caught in a whirlpool and was spat out toward the world's highest sheer drop-off of water.
"I drifted almost to the lip and was rescued by an Amerindian as I was holding on to weeds 10-15 yards (metres) from the edge," the former infantryman in the crack Highland regiment said by telephone from Lichfield, England.
"It was put into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1970-71 as the most dangerous swim recorded, but it was taken out again in 1980 because they didn't want anyone else attempting it," said Howat, who was 25 when he took the plunge.
To date no one else has gone to such extremes to get a bird's-eye view of the gargantuan waterfall, but Guyana is considering giving more tourists the chance to take in the remote wonder by developing its unspoiled surroundings.
The idea has sparked a backlash from naturalists and misgivings among travel agency operators as the cash-hungry government mulls the potential windfall.
"It would bring more tourists, but I'm inclined to leave it as it is," said Howat, who revisited the site in 1995.
DISTANT ATTRACTION
Kaieteur is reached via a 45-minute trip by light plane over vast tracts of rain forest some 250 miles (400 km) southwest of Georgetown, the capital of the former British colony tucked in the northeast corner of South America.
En route, the land stays fairly level until table-top mountains covered in foliage shoot out of the ground and the pilot starts tracking a deep, extensive gorge. Telltale vapour rises in the distance, then the waterfall appears like a great white and rust-flecked zipper running up the rock face.
A rush of 45,000 gallons (170,000 litres) per second pour over the 450-foot (141-metre) ledge, a perfect horseshoe cutting into the Potaro River. The freefall of water lands 741 feet (228 metres) below, then cascades a further 81 feet (25 metres) into the misty gorge, which is spanned by a rainbow on sunny days.
Established as a national park by the British in 1929, Kaieteur is five times the height of Niagara Falls on the U.S.-Canadian border and twice as tall as Africa's Victoria Falls. The site is the crown jewel out of more than 200 waterfalls that dot Guyana's largely uninhabited back country.
West of Kaieteur - past Mount Roraima, which Arthur Conan Doyle supposedly used to set his novel "Lost World" - are the Angel Falls in southern Venezuela. Named after Jimmy Angel, the U.S. pilot who stumbled across them in 1937, they tumble 3,133 feet (979 metres) and are the highest falls in the world, but unlike Kaieteur their narrow flow of water is broken by ledges.
Named for old Indian chief Kaie, who legend says paddled over the falls to appease the gods and save his Patamona tribe, Kaieteur's sandstone conglomerate has existed for 1.8 billion years, according to Geoffrey Da Silva, Guyana's Minister of Trade, Tourism and Industry.
The first European to see the falls was British geological surveyor C. Barrington Brown, who ran across them in 1870 while searching in the interior for gold and other minerals. The only regular visitors for years were naturalists as access was difficult and Guyana did nothing to push tourism or change its sour international reputation.
"We've had a negative overseas image. People tended to think Guyana was in Africa or they associated it with Jimmy Jones," Da Silva said. The Rev. James Jones, an American, brought Guyana world attention in 1978 when more than 900 disciples in his Jonestown colony drank cyanide-laced Cool-Aid in what may have been the largest mass suicide in history.
"We're trying to build sustainable tourism. With Kaieteur we will be very stern," Da Silva said.
Nowadays the ticket to the falls is a $210 one-day flight, which includes other attractions such as the Orinduik Falls on the Brazilian border, a 2-3 day boat trip or a five-day overland trek through the rain forest.
CHALET AT THE FALLS
The area atop the Kaieteur precipice is lush vegetation thick with plants including the bird of paradise, the sprawling rubber cupa and the sundue, a small carnivorous insect eater. Swifts swoop over the gorge and silver foxes, tapirs, monkeys and anteaters lurk around the park.
Aside from the small airstrip with a hut nearby, the only sign of humans is the government guest house, a Spartan affair that sleeps few. But investors have chatted up the government about 200-room hotels to coax more people to the falls, which currently attract a couple of thousand visitors a year.
Da Silva admits the money is enticing, but the government leans toward a 15-20 room chalet on a creek nearby, complemented by a series of walkways around the falls and a visitors centre. A master plan has been drawn up, along with a bid for UNESCO to declare the park a World Heritage site.
"This is one of the few places on the planet that people haven't managed to destroy," said Margaret Chan-A-Sue, whose husband Malcolm, a British Royal Air Force pilot, flew heir to the throne Prince Charles and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to the falls.
"(The development) is not being supported by the scientific world. It's solid rock there - what do you do with all the human waste?" Chan-A-Sue said.
Tony Thorne, director of the local Wilderness Explorers agency, supports "low key" accommodation strictly regulated by the National Park Board.
"I disagree with those who would like to see railings and concrete paths added," he said. "This lack of infrastructure is what keeps Kaieteur different from the other famous falls."
He said both Niagara and Iguazu Falls, where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet, have been "spoiled by all the commercialism, safety rails, concrete, hotels and people."
"Kaieteur is a true wilderness area. There are no roads, no shops, no tacky souvenirs, no hotels, no rails and very few people. Often you can arrive in your five-seater aircraft and be the only people there for the day."